Page 70 - Hawaii: Diving, Surfing, Pearl Harbor, Volcanoes and More

nto this mythic context was born Kame- marae. The skulls of the sacrifices were and flesh pounded to soften the meat. The
I hameha the Great, whose very name thrown into the great box-like platform. victims would then be disembowled and
means “The Lonely One” in about the either cooked or eaten raw by the Kahuna
year 1758. The large boulders inside the i-kanaka: cannibalism: The bounti- and the Ali’i (Chiefs) seeking the mana
enclosure at Kapakai Kokoiki Heiau are A ful lands and water of the Hawaiian from the captives. According to legend, at
thought to be the same birthing stones islands sustained over 1,000,000 Native Mo’okini, the last human sacrifices were
on which Kamehameha’s mother, Chiefess Hawaiians in the late 1700’s. So plentiful made in the late 1870’s.
Keku’iapoiwa, gave birth to the future ruler. was the harvest that every year, a celebra-
The warriors of the chief would go out, tion of games and feasting from November s first described by Captain James
sometimes by canoe, sometimes by land, to February took place. No work or war A Cooke: “seeing a man with a small
going to this or that house through the was allowed. Usually, human sacrifice was parcel fastened with a string to his fish-
length and breadth of Ra’iatea. Coming to a made to the war God Ku. The victims were hook, Cooke asked what it was and was told
house they would inquire, “Aita te hue par- enemy ali’i (chiefs) taken prisoner in bat- it was human flesh.....Cooke was asked by a
ari?” (Is the gourd not broken?) If an inmate tle. By eating the flesh of such a person, native if the white men ate the people they
replied, “No,” the household was spared; but the mana (strength, power and spirit) of killed...and was told that if the sailors were
if the reply was, “Yes,” the householder was that person was transferred to the victor killed on shore, they would be eaten....in
thrust through with a spear and with all by the act. Human sacrifice was routinely offering human sacrifice it was the custom
the members of his family, was taken back practiced here, taking the mana (spiritual for the officiating priest to pluck out the
to the marae. Only adults were impaled; strength) from the victim to insure victory left eye of the victim and make pretense of
children had a spear thrust through one in war. The captives, usually chiefs captured eating it....evidently the relic of some old
ear and were dragged in the water behind in battle, would be hung upside down on cannibalistic rite....” In 1779, when Cooke was
the canoe. Those that did not drown before wooden racks, where the their sweat would killed, his heart was eaten by three children who
they reached the Po [“Darkness”; the area be collected to anoint the Kahuna (priests). happened to be on the beach at the time.
surrounding the marae] were killed at the Next the victims would have their bones